THIS WEEK
Sun, 19th Aug 2007
AVP Crocs Tour 2007: Final Day – Brooklyn Open
WWE Summerslam: Meadowlands, USA
COURTSIDE: AT THE US OPEN TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIPS 2007
Roger, Maria Look to Defend Open Crowns
The 2007 Grand Slam season will come to a close over the next few weeks, as the U.S. Open gets underway on Monday at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center with the great Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova on hand as defending champions.
Federer has won the last three U.S. Opens, and will try to become the first-ever four-peat winner in the Open Era (since 1968) and the first one to do it in over 80 years. The last man to win four straight U.S. championships was the legendary Bill Tilden, who rattled off six consecutive wins from 1920-25. Bill Lamed captured the prestigious event five straight times from 1907-11, and Dick Sears nailed down the first seven such championships from 1881-87. Federer's competition will come from French Open champ and Wimbledon runner-up Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Lleyton Hewitt and the 2003 U.S. Open champion Andy Roddick.
Sharapova reigned supreme a year ago by beating Belgian slugger Justine Henin in straight sets in a marquee women's finale. The 2007 Aussie Open runner-up Sharapova is a two-time major winner in her career, with her other victory coming at Wimbledon three years ago. The 20-year-old Sharapova will try to become the first repeat women's titlist in the Apple since Venus Williams turned the trick in 2000 and 2001. However, Sharapova's trips to the majors this season have all ended in disaster. Source: Sports Network, 23rd Aug 2007
Williams Sisters to Play on Opening Night of US Open 2007
The USTA today announced that Venus Williams and Serena Williams will play back to back matches on Opening Night of the US Open. They will compete following a historic tribute to Althea Gibson that will celebrate the 50th anniversary of her historic title victory at the U.S. Nationals (formerly the US Open). Serena Williams was the first black woman since Althea Gibson to win the US Open. Venus Williams was the first black woman since Gibson to win Wimbledon. Together Serena Williams and Venus Williams have won 14 Grand Slam titles. Each has won the US Open twice.
The Opening Night Ceremony, entitled “Breaking Barriers,” will feature more than 15 African-American female pioneers from the fields of sports, entertainment, politics and the arts in a special on-court celebration of Althea Gibson’s life and career. Serena Williams is scheduled to play Angelique Kerber of Germany. Venus Williams drew a qualifier for her first-round match-up. Source: US Open Official, 23rd Aug 2007
DID YOU KNOW…?
Wireless Power is believed to be the next Big Thing. America's greatest electrical engineer, Nikola Tesla, among others established that wireless power is possible, and now there are several groups showing use a glimpse of this technology becoming reality. Wireless Electricity can be seen with companies like Splashpower and PowerCast, being invisible current to portable devices.
* Splashpower is a convenient new way of powering your mobile phone and other portable electronic devices without wires. http://www.splashpower.com.
* Powercast is the leader in the emerging technology of RF energy harvesting which enables the ability to safely transfer power -- without wires! http://www.powercastco.com
* Wardenclyffe Tower - The famous Tesla Tower, so called Wardenclyffe Tower, was erected by Nikola Tesla on 1901 -1903 as the first broadcasting system in the world. http://www.teslasociety.com/teslatower.htm
Source: Ken Radio, 23rd Aug 2007
SPORTS SHORTS
* In China, EPL broadcast switched to Pay-TV, WinTV, after bidding a reported US$50 million for PRC market. The station had only 40,000 subscribers but is confident of winning over viewers. At kick-off, subsidiary contracts with regional cable TV operators, including Shanghai, had yet to be concluded. A boon to a few companies offering live games via the internet, it was a scenario feared by some of England's biggest clubs who were reportedly "furious" that "limited Pay-TV audience may restrict the dynamic growth of English football in the world's most populous country." Source: Asian Football Business, 23rd Aug 2007
* In Indonesia, the week prior to the start of the EPL season saw ESPN-STAR Sports announce that the arrangement with Trans7 would not be continued. Trans7 said it "wouldn't be able to cover the cost of buying the rights even if we sold all the advertising spots, combined with other income from sponsors." But the hundreds of thousands of subscribers used to watching English football on the two ESS channels on established Pay-TV services Kabelvision and Indovision found they too would miss out. Paralleling the exclusive deal ESS made with Astro Supersport for the Malaysia in 2001, Astro's new Indonesian subsidiary, PT Direct Vision's Astro Indonesia, was announced as the new EPL sub-licensee for an undisclosed amount. Source: Asian Football Business, 23rd Aug 2007
* AFC'S Director of Marketing and Media and Communications, Claire Tipton, said 61% of football revenues in Asia goes to the English Premier League and, in South East Asia in alone, the EPL is the most supported football product. She argued against the proposition that the broadcast of European football got fans involved in local football. “One of the problems in these countries, Indonesia excepted, is that fans don't go to stadiums. A generation of latent fans has been created. They've never been to a live football game. They don't play football. They don't have a passion for the game. They watch it on TV. They say they support a club and they'll buy the shirt and that’s it. That's where it begins and where it ends, “ she said. Source: Asian Football Business, 23rd Aug 2007
* Director Of Internet Content at ESS, Dez Corkhill, spoke of football in Asia as a “fabulous” product with some as “good as anywhere in the world.” Even in Malaysia, he said, the highest rating live telecast in the past year had been an ASEAN Football Championship game between Malaysia and Singapore. “It out-rated anything from Manchester United Liverpool, Arsenal or Real Madrid … So there’s a product here. There really is.” However of the top nine highest rating games, the other eight were all English Premier League. Source: Asian Football Business, 23rd Aug 2007
* The United Arab Emirates has won the Asian Zone qualifiers for the 2007 World Cup Beach Soccer with a 4-3 win over Japan. Iran finished third with a 6-0 win over defending Asian champion Bahrain. UAE, Japan and Iran now will participate in the World Cup to be held 2-11 November in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Asian qualifiers had six teams, hosts UAE, Bahrain, Japan, China, Iran and debutants India and were organised by the Dubai Sports Council. Source: Asian Football Business, 23rd Aug 2007
* Sportfive has clinched a crucial signing to its legal team after nabbing the associate general counsel of ESPN Star Sports. The agency recruited Ed Floydd from the Singapore-based firm to head up its legal team at its headquarters in Geneva. Graham Preston has replaced Floydd at ESS. Floydd’s departure comes just weeks after he helped conclude ESS’ recent deal with the International Cricket Council. Source: Sport Business, 23rd Aug 2007
* Hong Kong-based satellite operator AsiaSat has hinted that Asia’s strong economic performance is at last trickling down to its satellite operations. But the company is concerned over the launch of two competitive crafts from China (SinoSat 3 and ChinaSat 6B) which are now coming into service. With 8.8% of AsiaSat’s revenues coming from China-targeted services, there is a risk of an “adverse impact” if these contracts switch. Source: Rapid TV News, 23rd Aug 2007
* 3DD Entertainment has appointed a new sales manager for Asia and Eastern Europe. Anita Barnard joins as sales manager, reporting to 3DD's director of sales, Anthony Kimble. Barnard takes responsibility for the company's TV programming sales into Asia (excluding Japan) and Eastern Europe, as well as worldwide DVD sales. She joins the company from Germany's Beta Film, where she handled TV and home video distribution, focusing on Asia-Pacific and Africa, as well as developing sales strategies and establishing new broadcaster relationships. Source: C21 Media, 23rd Aug 2007
* Kapil Dev is now a persona non-grata of the Indian Cricket Board. A day after he paraded his bunch of ‘devils’ under the aegis of Indian Cricket League, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) expelled the country’s only World Cup winning captain. NCA's vice-chairman Ajay Shirke will act as chairman till the BCCI Annual General Meeting in September when a permanent arrangement will be made. Consequently, players who have joined the ICL were also expelled en bloc. "They will not be allowed to take part in any of the Board's activities," a BCCI official said. Source: DNA IN, 21st Aug 2007
* New Manchester City owner, Thaksin Shinawatra's most important football contact in London is Philippe Huber, whose company, Kentaro, holds the TV rights for matches played by Thailand's international team, and Huber is a close friend of the Thai FA's president, Worawi Makudi, an influential figure in world football and Fifa executive committee member. Through Makudi, Huber came to know Thaksin while he was prime minister, and Huber advised in 2004 when Thaksin tried to buy Liverpool on behalf of the Thai government, a proposal which fell through. Excerpt from: David Conn’s Blog on The Guardian UK, 21st Aug 2007
* The 2010 World Cup will be in high definition. The South African event will feature 25 cameras per match to bring out the best quality, supplementing it with surround sound. As HDTV uses five to eight times the bandwidth of standard television, each stadium to be connected to the IBC via a 20Gbit/s diverse path (40Gbit/s per stadium) to meet additional bandwidth requirements. HDTV likely will not be available to South Africans through terrestrial television broadcasting but by 2010 there should also be various new pay-TV operators in South Africa which may bring HDTV to local consumers. Source: EUFootball.biz, 23rd Aug 2007
* Lee Daley, the former chief executive of Saatchi & Saatchi, has left his role as commercial director at Manchester United Football Club. Daley has held the Manchester United job for a matter of months; he resigned from Saatchis only in February. A statement from the football club confirmed Daley's departure, adding it was "by mutual consent". Chief executive David Gill said: "Everyone at Manchester United wishes Lee the very best for the future." Daley was unavailable for comment. Source: Brand Republic, 23rd Aug 2007
MORE NEWS
South East Asia/Rights: Two NOCs Oppose Plans to Charge for SEA Games TV Rights
The national Olympic committees of Vietnam and Malaysia are opposing plans by the Southeast Asian Games Federation to take control of the event’s television rights and start charging broadcasters for them for the first time. The issue was due to be discussed at a meeting of the federation in Bangkok today. Vietnam’s VTC cable television station has already reached a preliminary agreement with the organising committee for this year’s games in Thailand to acquire the exclusive television rights for $300,000. But Vietnam’s national Olympic committee claims that the rights were not the organising committee’s to sell.
VTC has countered that it is willing to share its coverage with other local television stations, provided that they air its programming, including announcers and advertisements. Broadcasters are being asked to pay a rights fee for the first time after Suntipab Techavanij, chairman of the rights division for this year’s games in Thailand, said that the extra revenues were needed to cover the cost of staging the event, estimated at $6.6 million.
Under the previous games regulations rights were shared equally among the national Olympic committees of participating countries free of charge, and the NOCs then allocated them to national broadcasters. This year’s games, which will feature 43 sports, are scheduled for December 6 to 16. Source: Sportcal, 23rd Aug 2007
Vietnam/Rights: VTC Gets English Premier League Rights
The VTC digital television station has bought the broadcasting rights for the Barclays English Premier League from 2007 to 2010, after a long negotiation. Deputy Director of VTC, Nguyen Duc Hung, a member of VTC’s negotiation team with ESPN-Star Sports, said: “Not money but other reasons urged VTC to overcome three other rivals to buy the broadcasting rights for this event.”
VTC began to negotiate for the Barclays English Premier League broadcasting rights in November 2006 and reached a preliminary deal in April 2007. In early June 2007, an agreement was reached. The amount of money that VTC paid for the broadcasting rights for this event is much lower than the rumoured $1.5 million. The sum that VTC had to pay is even less than that of its colleagues in the region.
Singapore’s StarHub Cable Vision paid $160 million for the broadcasting rights for three consecutive football seasons like VTC. As of result, 490,000 subscribers of this cable TV channel have to pay an additional $4/month to watch this famous football league. Similarly, Thai and Malaysian people will have to pay some more for this event. Meanwhile, Vietnamese fans can watch the Barclays English Premier League for three years using a digital receiver worth $105.
Even people without digital receivers and not being cable TV subscribers can still watch three matches of this tournament each week because VTC will broadcast three matches on its analogue VTC1 channel. Source: Vietnam Net, 22nd Aug 2007
Korea/Broadcaster: Sidus and ImaginAsian in US$20m Deal
Korea's Sidus Corporation has formed a US$20m joint venture with New York-based ImaginAsian Entertainment to build up the pair's production and distribution activities across TV, film and music in the US. Under the deal, Sidus is providing ImaginAsian with both the capital and an array of content to up its distribution in the US via the latter's carriage on Comcast, Time Warner and Cox cable.
ImaginAsian, which focuses on bringing Asian entertainment to US audiences, will draw on the new funds not only to provide Sidus's content with greater exposure but to step up its own production. Sidus-produced programming being handed to ImaginAsian includes series recently comissioned for Korean music broadcaster Mnet, such as reality show Stunning Blind Date.
The Mnet deal was the first of several Sidus is lining up with other major Asian strategic partners as part of a targeted US$100m content and investment fund for the US market, which it expects to close by year-end. Again, the fruits of this will be funnelled into North America through the joint venture with ImaginAsian, which launched its first entertainment property in 2004 via its iaTV channel.
As well as buying in programming from Korean, Japan, India, Hong Kong and elsewhere in Asia, the company has subsequently produced its own English-language or dubbed series with titles including Finding My America and Comedy Zen. Source: C21 Media, Indian Television, 23rd Aug 2007
Korea/Broadcaster: Mac Bank Eyes More Asian Cable
Australia’s Macquarie Bank is set to make its second investment in South Korean cable. First, the bank is poised to be a part of a consortium which is purchasing a 30% stake in C&M for about US$650 million. But it will also reportedly team up with a local private equity group, MBK Partners, to buy out the remaining 70%. US investment bank Goldman Sachs is offloading the stake, which it bought for Won140 billion (around US$150 million) three years ago.
In May 2005, Mac Bank was part of a consortium that invested A$195 million in another Korean cable operator, CJ CableNet. With deregulation of South Korea’s cable industry expected soon, consolidation of the sector is likely. Mac Bank also owns Taiwan Broadband Communications, one of Taiwan’s major cable operators, through its Macquarie Media Group unit.
India/General: ICC Says ICL is an Internal Matter for India
The International Cricket Council has said that it will not intervene to resolve a dispute between the Board of Control for Cricket in India and the new Indian Cricket League. The BCCI has refused to sanction the league and threatened to ban players who sign up from appearing for the national team and in official domestic competitions. It highlighted the issue at the last meeting of the ICC executive board in London in June, but the governing body has decided that it is ‘an internal matter’ for the Indian board.
Other national boards have also been left to take their own stance on the league. Like the BCCI, the Pakistan Cricket Board has said it will exclude contracted players who sign up for the competition. Four Pakistan internationals, including former captain Inzamam-ul-Haq and star batsman Mohammed Yousuf, are among the 50 players said to have agreed to join the ICL, which is due to launch with a six-team Twenty20 competition in October and November. The league is backed by the Essel Group, the owner of broadcasting group Zee Telefilms. Source: Sportcal, 23rd Aug 2007
Global/Rights: EPL Banked £200mil on Internet and Mobile Right
The English Premier League has sold off worldwide internet and mobile rights for use as video for the first time in league history. The league struck deals with nine different companies for a total of nearly GBP 200 million. Each deal runs for three years and will have clips and highlight packages of 1,140 league matches. Some of the buyers already are using licenses to distribute to other nations. Nimbus and Sportev combined to win the rights in 80 nations, and are in talks with various outlets to distribute material.
Virgin Media already has a deal in place worth GBP 20 million. While the league has taken in GBP 650 million for its TV rights, the thinking is the internet and global rights will only grow in value. "The internet and mobile rights are worth less than the broadcast rights because it is not yet a mature market, albeit one that is fast expanding in demand," said a league spokesman. "The broadcast rights also come at a premium because the rights we are selling are for the broadcasting of live footage." Source: EUFootball.biz, 23rd Aug 2007
Elsewhere/Rights: Premier League Rejects Criticism of Limited Reach in Africa
English soccer's top-tier Premier League today rejected criticism of its decision to sell its sub-Saharan television rights to a broadcaster with limited distribution in the African continent. Dismay has been growing among African soccer fans after the award of the rights to GTV, the pay-television operator, left millions of fans without access to the majority of games.
In June, GTV, the UK-based firm owned by the African satellite company Gateway Broadcast Services, acquired the rights to 80 per cent of the Premier League matches in sub-Saharan Africa for the next three years, but has only rolled out its service in five countries. Coverage of the league, which kicked off on August 11, is available in Botswana, Kenya, Mauritius, Tanzania and Uganda, but viewers elsewhere cannot receive GTV's coverage.
The remaining 20% of rights in the sub-Saharan African market are held by MultiChoice Africa, the satellite broadcaster that previously enjoyed a monopoly on the rights. GTV claims that its service will be launched in Angola, Burundi, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Namibia, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe in the next couple of months, before expanding to Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Gambia and French-speaking African nations by the end of the year.
Coverage throughout the 48 sub-Saharan countries is scheduled for the middle of 2008. English-language content in French-speaking parts of West Africa will be supplemented with French-language channels. GTV has launched what it describes as an 'affordable' pay-television service, cheaper than Premier League coverage on Supersport, the South-African pay-television broadcaster, and has rights to show up to eight live games per week on its G-Sports 1 and G-Sports 2 channels. Premier League rights in sub-Saharan Africa were previously held by DStv, a brand of MultiChoice Africa. Source: Sportcal, 23rd Aug 2007
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